From Coca-Cola’s (KO) Q1 2010 earnings call:
Muhtar Kent – Chairman and CEO:
China unit case volume grew 6%, including double-digit growth in the latter half of the quarter. This performance comes on the heels of a strong fourth quarter and a great finish to 2009, which was led by growth across our portfolio, as well as new product launches.
Over the past six months, our volume grew at solid 16%, and while we may see volume swings from quarter-to-quarter, the 16% growth over the past six months was ahead of our primary international competitor.
For perspective, our China business has generated more than $100 million incremental unit cases this past six months and continues to be twice the size of our primary international competitor on an annual basis, and we are building momentum across our entire portfolio.
We are advancing our sparkling business in China, behind strong innovations, such as the launch of Sprite Tea, which taps into the combined popularity of Green Tea and Sprite. We are expanding our winning still beverage business through the ongoing growth of our industry-leading juice and juice drink beverages and our Minute Maid Pulpy Super Milky dairy brand. And we are kicking off an exciting new Yuan Ye led tea portfolio, launching Yuan Ye Jasmine tea. As we have shared before, we are just getting started in China and remain resolute in our commitment to invest for solid long-term growth.
…I think China still continues to remain the most important growth market for the Company and I think through the end of 2009, as you saw, we held double-digits in China. It’s been 26 consecutive quarters since 2003 till the end of 2009 and during that time, ‘03 to ‘09, our base grew three-fold, almost to 1.8 billion cases or over 400 billion servings per annum. And having said that, we all know that China remains a complex, rapidly changing market, but I can reiterate one thing, our brands, our investment, our innovation platforms remained very healthy and I would say that we would be disappointed if we would not continue to achieve double-digit growth on an annual basis in China going forward. And if you view our business in China over the past six months, our volume averaged at 16% growth over the last six months, very consistent with same prior-year period and this is very similar to what you would have seen also if you compare quarter four of ’08 versus quarter one of ’09.
Full transcript here.
